Nick Schifrin:
And to discuss this shift in U.S. policy, we get two views.
Retired Rear Admiral William Baumgartner commanded U.S. Coast Guard operations in the Southeast U.S. and Caribbean and before that was the Coast Guard’s judge advocate general chief counsel, the service’s top uniform lawyer. And Michael Brown had a 32-year career as a special agent at the Drug Enforcement Administration, where he operated in Latin America. He’s now the director of global counter-narcotics technology at Rigaku Analytical Devices, a company that makes devices that can identify unknown chemicals and precursors of drugs.
Thanks very much. Welcome, both of you, to the “News Hour.”
Michael Brown, let me start with you.
This new approach that the Trump administration to use the military to target these fast boats and these cartels in the region, is that the right approach?
Michael Brown, Global Director of Counter-Narcotics Technology, Rigaku Analytical Devices: Well, I think, given the escalation in the use of fentanyl, which is now killing an estimated 100,000 individuals a year, roughly 200 individuals a day, the threat by the cartels has been a terrorist threat for some years, in my opinion.
I think now we have an administration that understands that threat, that it surpasses criminal activity of a criminal organization and that they are now acting as a terrorist organization. So the implementation of the kinetic strike to combat maritime go-fast traffic I think now is an appropriate reaction to the threat that the United States faces.
